Use this section to discuss your experiences with prescription drugs, iron injections, and other medical interventions that involve the introduction of a drug or medicine into the body. Discuss side effects, successes, failures, published research, information about drug trials, and information about new medications being developed.

Important: Posts and information in this section are based on personal experiences and recommendations; they should not be considered a substitute for the advice of a healthcare provider.

After having been on short acting oxycodone for over ten years, I started to get daytime symptoms and middle of the night breakthrough symptoms, and was getting to a dosage level I wasn’t comfortable with (40 mg day) and wanted to give a try with methadone, as it seems to work so well for so many and has such a long half-life. This is my first day on in 5 mg 2x day, one noonish, the other around 8 pm. The good news, it’s doing an incredible job on my RLS, as expected. The bad, I’m wide awake at 3:30 am. Groggy, sleepy, but my brain feels very stimulated. Is this something that in anyone’s experience goes away as you adjust to it? Is there something to add that might help? had absolutely nothing of the kind on oxycodone, and it’s very unexpected as I was expecting the opposite as it’s a pretty potent opioid. If could also be my body adjusting to the stopping of the oxy too I suppose. Any thoughts/ideas would be appreciated!

Quite possibly what you are experiencing is a side effect of some opioids that most of us call "alerting". When I was on methadone, I only took it once a day. My doctor recommended that I take it at bedtime, but I wasn't able to sleep that night. So, I moved the time that I took it to lunchtime. With methadone's long half life, it was able to control my RLS for 24 hrs and taking it at noon allowed the alerting side effect to wear off in time for me to be able to fall asleep at a "normal" time in the evening.

Interesting thanks. I’ll give that a try. I can already tell the long half life is a huge advantage and if I can get that RLS coverage into the night without the buzzing brain that will be ideal. Cheers

I have 5 mg tablets. I had to change the times to every 6 hours. So I take 2.5 my every 6 hours, with a change on the second to last dose.2 pm 2.5 mg8 pm 2.5 mgAround midnight 5 mg. I realize it is not 6 hours, but it works for me. That last one would get me through the night and get me through to next dose.Or you could start at noonNoon 2.5 mg6 pm 2.5 mgMidnight 2.5 mg6 am 2.5 mg, or again. Just do both at midnight if you have a tendency to sleep in. This worked for me for a long time. My doctor knows how I do it. I have enough bathroom breaks, so it works for me. I take that that last dose whenever I wake up. I set alarms on my phone, for daytime times.Right now for me I am taking more meds for a different reason.